Osteochondral defects present significant challenges for treatment in animals and humans. Osteochondral tissues are complex due to the gradual transition from cartilage to bone tissue types. The nature of the osteochondral tissue is important to its mechanical functionality and integrity. Healing of all tissues to recapitulate the native osteochondral tissue is the optimal treatment outcome. However, there is currently no available method of repairing all the tissues using a single implantable scaffold. A scaffold, by nature of its chemical and physical properties, can guide associated cells to produce the desired tissue. However, hydrogel scaffolds are generally prepared with a “single” composition, and hence, display a single set of chemical and physical properties. A hydrogel scaffold for osteochondral healing should present spatially varied properties in order to induce healing of specific tissue or tissues in a given region. In efforts to overcome this limitation, two or more different scaffolds may be joined in some fashion following fabrication of the individual hydrogels. However, this produces a “hard interface” (i.e. lacking a gradual transition) between the different hydrogels which can lead to mechanical failure. Therefore, the use of hydrogels as implanted scaffolds in treating osteochondral defects has been met with limited success. There is clearly a need to identify hydrogel scaffold compositions and their preparation methods which provide spatially varied properties and soft interfaces between different regions leading to the efficient healing of each of the various tissue types within the osteochondral defect.